The Boy
by Spider and the Fly
Summary: Luis saw him every time the Unseelie King called him for some job or other. The boy who danced with the fey like he was one of them, but Luis could see no glamour on him. He drank faerie wine and threw it up later with a sly grin, as though daring the world to make something of it.


Luis saw him every time the Unseelie King called him for some job or other. The boy who danced with the fey like he was one of them, but Luis could see no glamour on him. He drank faerie wine and threw it up later with a sly grin, as though daring the world to make something of it. He would laugh with the fey, but if they tried to go further (touching, coaxing, playing with his mind or body), he drew the line, playfully pulling an iron chain from the neck of his shirt or an earring that glittered like precious stones in his ear.  
The King knew he stared in some kind of fierce fascination, but he never said anything about the looks. In fact, he'd smile with something like satisfaction before moving on with the instructions. Luis didn't want to give him any more power over him than he already had, so he never mentioned the boy.  
It only began intruding in his life when he decided to accept the Unseelie King's offer of protection for all those he cared to bring, and it slipped out of his mouth: "Will that guy be there? The one with black hair, that looks human but dances like fey?" His face colored even as he said it, sure they'd laugh or be disgusted. He didn't duck his head, though. That was weakness, and you don't show weakness to faeries, even those that have been kind to you. Especially not the kind ones.  
The pixie always by the King's side stepped forward and grinned, a flash of teeth like bone and glass. He swallows.  
"You wanna talk to him? He's my friend; I think he'd like you." And then, he WILLINGLY followed a FAERIE through a FAERIE REVEL to find a boy she claimed was her FRIEND. Luis could see how bad an idea this was in his head, but the signals kept getting mixed up on the way to his body. He was meeting THE BOY. It was a momentous occasion, somehow.  
He was almost a little frightened when they turned into an area of Underhill that the Unseelie King had warned him off of.  
"He'd be around here somewhere. He likes to hang out among the dangerous ones. Personally, I think he's slightly suicidal, not that he'd ever act on it."  
She smiled in a snarky, patronizing way. "He wastes his humanity down here, among the thorns and brambles, but he gets pissed at me when I tell him that."  
Luis doesn't dare disagree for fear of distracting her from her self-appointed task. (He doesn't tell her the boy looks at home among the cobwebs and dancing trees, that he's ethereal all by himself but all this strangeness simply makes it stand out more.) He just follows.  
Soon enough (though you can hardly tell with time Underhill) they're rounding a corner and stumbling upon the boy, drunk on faerie wine but still beating three phookas and a goblin out of their pants. Luis laughs; he can't help it. The novelty of the situation is not lost on him, even as four sets of insulted eyes and one pair of dazed but curious eyes turn towards him.  
He sits and pours himself some wine.  
"Never seen anyone win a pair of faerie pants at poker before."  
The boy grins, even if it is a little lopsided, and says brazenly, "Then you're new around here, huh? Heh; pass that over here, I'm not nearly as drunk as I could be and I want to be."  
He snatches the goblet right out of Luis' hand and presses a thin metal chain into his palm: iron. Luis shakes his head.  
"I can't accept this, you need it." The boy clucks his tongue.  
"Take it and thank me later when they're trying to feel you up. I line my pockets with it anyway, baubles and trinkets and necklaces and earrings. My sister's. She'd be glad it was going to good use in defense against the creatures that killed her." The boy deals him in, and he settles in for a long, intriguing, and much-anticipted game in which he kicks the boy's ass at poker.  
And many more.  
(He does eventually use that chain against a very tactile brownie who's never been outside Underhill and gets curious sometimes. He laughs afterward with Neil, The Boy.)


End file.
